Manufacturing Plant Layout Examples

If you own or manage a manufacturing plant, it’s crucial to have the right layout. Without a proper layout where production can flow seamlessly, there will be holdups and delays in the manufacturing process.

However, finding the right layout can be tricky, as there are many different systems that you can try.

The goal of this article is to help you find the right manufacturing plant layout for your needs. To do this, we’ll provide several of the most common and successful layout ideas in the industry. That way, you can examine each one, try them out, and decide which one is right for you.

What makes a good manufacturing plant layout?

There are several factors to consider when it comes to designing the perfect manufacturing plant layout. These factors exist for all manufacturers, no matter what type of plant you’re operating.

Safety

Safety is one of the biggest concerns when it comes to designing the layout for a manufacturing plant. Regardless of what you’re manufacturing, most plants will have a ton of foot traffic, not to mention heavy machinery, forklifts, and more.

Forklift traffic is an especially important concern in the safety department, as it can be difficult to maintain clear and distinct lanes for walking versus for forklifts.

One of the best ways to maintain safety in a manufacturing plant is to have everything clearly marked within the plant. That includes areas with frequent forklift activity as well as areas that are off-limits for forklifts and other types of machinery.

It’s also important that everything within the plant has a designated storage area so that people aren’t meandering throughout the plant looking for something and not paying attention to their surroundings.

Production Efficiency

Aside from safety, the biggest factor to consider when designing a plant layout is what will help you produce your goods with the most speed and efficiency.

After all, if you can’t produce your goods in a fast and efficient manner, your business will likely fail or you’ll see a drop in profits at the very least.

Common mistakes made in plant layout design

Even though there are only two main things to consider when designing a plant layout, it’s surprisingly easy to miss the mark. Here are some of the most common mistakes we see that lead to a poor plant layout design.

Lack of planning

In an effort to start producing goods as quickly as possible, some plants skip the design layout process. As a result, they end up with a bad system of production, reduced efficiency, safety hazards, and other issues.

Some companies just build an empty building and decided where to put things after they move in. This causes a lot of problems from day one and rework that costs time and money. A well thought out plant can get you producing at a high level from day one.

In the end, poor planning for the sake of starting production sooner inevitably leads to mistakes and losses in profit down the road.

Lack of mezzanine use

Mezzanines are one of the best ways to maximize the space and production potential of any given building. By installing mezzanines in your production plants, you double the total space at your disposal.

Mezzanines also offer a safer alternative to constructing and lowering goods onto the plant floor, than hauling them with heavy machinery across a crowded workplace. As such, whether you need it right now or not, installing mezzanines in your plant is essential.

Not researching other plants

When it comes to designing the perfect plant layout, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. There’s a good chance that another plant in your area has a design that would be perfect for you.

You can find out by asking to tour local plants, getting ideas and inspiration from them, and piecing them together to design the perfect layout for your needs.

Not being lean

When it comes to manufacturing plants, less is more. In other words, there’s no reason to overstock your plant with too much of each component. Instead, it’s important to only stock as much as you need to get the job done.

What’s the difference between plant layout and production layout?

Although they are similar and are sometimes used interchangeably, plant layout and production layout aren’t quite the same thing.

Plant layout refers to the layout and design of the plant as a whole, which includes restrooms, office space, lunch rooms, and more.

Production layout, on the other hand, refers specifically to the plant floor and mezzanine areas where production occurs.

Different aspects of manufacturing plant layout

In addition to confusing production layout with plant layout, there are a few other aspects of manufacturing plant layout that people confuse with one another.

Product layout design

Product layout design, also referred to as line layout, refers to the flow of materials from one end of the plant to the other.

It involves arranging equipment, individuals, and materials as strategically as possible to produce things with maximum efficiency. A good example of product layout design is the moving assembly line used in the manufacturing of early vehicles.

Process layout design

Although similar to product design layout, process layout design refers to the different workstations and jobs within a plant as opposed to the different materials and tools.

It’s important to combine process layout design with product layout design for maximum manufacturing efficiency.

Fixed position layout design

Fixed-position layout design is all about efficiency. The goal is to design a plant layout that results in maximum production while taking the least amount of steps and eating up as little floor space as possible.

In other words, the less that people have to walk and move to get their job done, the more efficient they will be.

Additionally, if they can do it in as small a space as possible, that leaves more room for other workstations which means more efficiency.

Hybrid layout

Hybrid layout design is when you combine multiple other layout types into a single design plan.

That could be combining product and process layout, fixed-position and process layout, or any other combination.

In most cases, finding the right hybrid layout results in maximum speed and efficiency.

Vertical integration

Vertical integration means controlling more of your supply chain internally by producing in house.

For example, a farm-to-table restaurant would be “vertically integrated” since the restaurant does not need to rely on the supply of meat, vegetables, etc. to serve it’s food since it is raised on a farm owned by the restaurant.

The key to vertical integration is to own and manage as many different aspects of the production process as possible.

For example, if you’re building an automobile, you’ll make the most profit and be the most productive when you build as much of that car as possible.

The more of the producing you can do in-house, the more profits your company will gain.

While vertical integration is ideal in most cases, there are some instances when this isn’t true.

For instance, there are instances where it costs more to create a certain component for whatever you’re producing than it does to outsource the job or buy it from a supplier. In these instances, vertical integration can do more harm than good.

How does plant layout for large production plants differ from small production ones?

The size of your plant and your production goals make a big difference in the perfect design for your plant layout.

As such, one of the first things we ask our clients is how much of an item do you want to produce, and how quickly do you want to produce it? If you want to produce the highest product volume possible, we consider this a large production plant.

Conversely, if you’re going for quality over quantity and the emphasis isn’t on mass production, we consider this a small production plant.

It doesn’t matter how big the item is you’re producing. Large versus small production refers to how much of an item you want to produce and how quickly you want to produce it.

Because a different set of skills is required for large production plants versus small production plants, their layout design is different.

Small production plants often require more specialists working slowly and methodically, which means the emphasis is on quality control and customization as opposed to speed and efficiency.

What is the production layout design of a typical RV plant?

RV plants are famous for having some of the most efficient production layouts in any industry. The fact that workers in an RV plant can build dozens of recreational vehicles in a single day is nothing short of remarkable.

Therefore, RV plants are a great place to turn to for production layout ideas, and there are basically two options when it comes to a typical RV plant layout production layout.

Elephant style

Elephant style is where RVs are sent through the assembly line nose to tail style. In other words, each RV is moving through the plant with the rear facing the back of the plant and the front facing the front. This was first adopted by Henry Ford with the invention of the assembly line that is now present in almost every automobile factory in the world!

With this style of design, the assembly team has the ability to bring sub assemblies to the unit from each side of the line. This allows them to reduce the travel distance to install location on the unit for the portion of the unit that each station is responsible for.

It takes a considerable amount of production space to use this method, but in the end, the less distance you have to travel to perform your function of the assembly line the quicker the unit can be assembled.

Side-by-side style

Side-by-side style, on the other hand, is when the RVs are positioned beside each other in a plant, rather than from front to back. Side-by-side is the preferred style for most modern RV plants.

Because RVs aren’t as wide as they are long, you can fit more RVs into a plant at one time, which means more people can be working on them simultaneously. In most cases, this results in faster production and more efficiency for RV specifically.

Regardless of which production style you prefer, most RV plant layouts will have around 40 stations.

Production will start with a steel frame and proceed through each workstation until the finished product gets pushed out of the factory.

Additionally, while there’s some room for customization with RV plant layout, most plants follow the same general outline listed above.

Is automation used in the RV industry production process?

While AI and automation are making huge waves in many industries, it has yet to see success in the RV industry.

This is because most RVs are unique from one another and require hands-on work to produce them. As such, in most instances where automation has been used in the RV production process, it’s been a failure.

What is PWIs role in the plant layout process?

In most cases, PWI acts as a consultant for production plant layouts, rather than as the sole designer. Creating the perfect plant layout process often requires input from several different specialties, including architects, engineers, planners, and more.

While PWI has a crucial part to play in each of these aspects, we typically tweak and alter plans rather than create them from scratch.

However, there are times when PWI gets to work with a blank slate and handle the design process as a whole. This happened recently when a leading RV producer had an empty building and asked us to create a production layout plan from scratch. Although this happens occasionally, it’s fairly rare.

Benefits of having a good plant layout

Here are several benefits of having a good layout for your plant:

Safety

Safety is the most important benefit of having a good plant layout. While profits and efficiency are important, nothing matters more than having a safe workspace for your employees to operate within.

A good example of emphasizing safety during the design layout is to have vertical reciprocating conveyers to transfer heavy loads from mezzanines to the plant floor and vice versa. Using VRCs is safer and easier than using forklifts. VRC’s allow you to fully stabilize and contain the load as it transitions from one level to the next.

Efficiency

Next up, a good plant layout will result in maximum efficiency. The better your plant layout is, the less your employees will have to move around and waste their time and energy. This results in producing more goods in a short amount of time.

Profits

As efficiency and production increases, so do your profits. Therefore, while making as much money as possible might not be your primary goal as a business owner, it will be a definite reward if you have a good plant layout.

Productivity

One of the hidden benefits of a good plant layout is that your workers will work harder and be more productive because their morale will be higher. For instance, if you design specific aspects of your plant to benefit specific individuals, they will take notice of it and work harder for you.

Another way that plant layout can make workers happy is by having restrooms and cooling stations located near your workers. This will show them that you care about their needs, which leads to higher employee retention and less turnover, which leads to more profits and a better production process.

You’re investing in yourself

“General contractors often think a building is most important since it costs the most when in reality a building covers what’s most important. Your manufacturing space is a large investment, to maximize your ROI don’t settle for a less-than ideal layout.” – Darren Miller (VP of Engineering & Product Development at PWI)

This quote perfectly summarizes how important your plant space is. While your building is an expensive investment, there’s no point in having one if you don’t have a functional plant space inside of it. Therefore, it’s unwise to have one without the other.

Examples of having the wrong manufacturing plant layout

We’ve looked at a lot of things that can make your plant layout better and more successful. However, there are also a number of things you can do that will mess up your plant layout.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is thinking you know more than you actually do. For instance, we had one customer who was convinced that automation was the key to their plants’ success.

Based on our experience, we knew that this likely wouldn’t be the case and that incorporating automation could result in failure.

While we certainly don’t claim to know everything, we were right in this instance, and incorporating automation was indeed a mistake. As such, it’s important to analyze and plan and be willing to listen to those around you when it comes to plant layout.

Another common mistake people make is in making too many compromises with their plant design. For instance, we’ve seen many people buy buildings because it’s what they could afford or what was available at the time.

They did this even though they knew the building wasn’t ideal for their needs. The idea is that they would buy the building and figure out the rest later.

More often than not, this leads to one compromise after another, whether it’s with safety, plant layout, or not having the right equipment.

This leads to a number of issues ranging from safety hazards in the workplace to a lack of productivity or inefficiency.

These issues could have been avoided by being patient and having a plan rather than jumping the gun and making a bad purchase.

Proper planning for your manufacturing plant layout

Now that we’ve looked at some examples of a good manufacturing plant layout and the benefits of having one, let’s look at some of the planning aspects involved with designing the perfect plant layout for your needs.

How much time does it take to plan a plant layout?

Although it varies from job to job, it typically takes around two to three weeks to plan a preliminary plant layout.

This is typically only the case, however, when a plant brings existing drawings and ideas to us, as it will take slightly longer if we create a plan from scratch.

If you’re extremely crunched for time, we may be able to create a plan in as little as two to three days. However, two to three weeks is our typical turnaround time for designing plant layouts.

The size of your plant will also affect how long it takes for us to create a plan. The larger your production space and the more spaces you have, the longer our planning will take.

Does PWI charge for plant layout planning?

One of the things that sets us apart from our competitors is that we don’t always charge for plant layout planning.

It essentially works like a free quote in that we’ll schedule a consultation, create preliminary drawings, go over them with you, and then you can decide if you’d like to move forward with our services. If you choose not to, we won’t charge you for plant layout design planning.

What are PWIs 5 steps that go into plant layout?

Part of the reason for our success with plant layouts is that we’ve boiled it down to a simple five-step process.

1. Understanding the process
   
   Before we can create your perfect plant layout, we need to understand how your process works. To do that, we’ll plan a trip to your facility, observe your production process, and build our design from there.
   
   Our goal isn’t to force you to completely change the way you operate. Instead, it’s to make your current operation smoother without forcing to learn a whole new system.
   
   
2. Create rough drawings
   
   Next, we’ll use CAD technology to create rough drawings of our plans in our computer system. This will allow us to bring our vision to life so that you can see it and visualize how it will be implemented in your plant.
   
   
3. Review the drawings with you
   
   We will then schedule a meeting with you so that we can review the drawings together. This will allow us to explain our methodology to you, while also giving you a chance to point out things you’d like to see in our drawings.
   
   
4. Review our drawings with your superiors
   
   In most cases, our initial meeting is with a building supervisor or a contractor. We understand that plant managers and owners are often too busy to meet up for preliminary drawings, and we don’t want to waste your time.
   
   Therefore, once a building supervisor or contractor is happy with our drawings, the next step is to meet with the plant manager or owner and review the drawings with them.
   
   
5. Cost analysis and negotiation
   
   Once everyone is happy with our drawings, we’ll dive into the cost analysis process. This includes listing out things that are essential to your plants success versus things that aren’t.
   
   We’ll also establish what your budget is and make sure that our plans fit it, rather than trying to convince you to change your budget to accommodate our plans.
   
   Additionally, if we can find ways to make your current operations cheaper so that you have more money to put towards your new plans, we’ll help out wherever we can! Our goal is to create a plant layout that’s more efficient and successful than you could ever imagine.

How often do customers come with a plant layout?

Having a plant layout beforehand can save us a ton of time in the planning process. No matter how in depth your plans are, we always welcome ideas or plans of some sort.

However, we also ask that you’re open to tweaks and changes to your plan in the hopes that we can make it better through mutual cooperation and collaboration.

Is planning the same for all types of plants?

Although there are often similarities in the planning process, no two plants are ever exactly the same, which means no two plans are exactly the same.

This is especially true when it comes to different types of plants. If you’re in the automotive or RV industry, your plant design is going to be different than a warehouse or storage facility.

In some cases when complex systems or automation is necessary, we’ll often bring in integration specialists to assist us.

However, for simple systems for smaller companies, we can handle every aspect of the design and integration process. Here are some of the different types of plants we’ve worked with:

• RV
• Automotive
• Casting
• Molding
• Agricultural
• Storage
• Commercial
• Many more!

In every instance, we use the same basic approach that we outlined above. However, although the process may look the same, the final product and plans will be different depending on your industry.

Do you check in with customers to see how effective your design was?

Whenever possible, we follow up with our customers to ensure that our plant design is effective. We do this for several reasons. First, if our plans were ineffective and you’re having issues, we want to remedy them as quickly as possible.

Secondly, we believe that experience is the best teacher, and we want to learn from our successes as well as our mistakes. Therefore, if a plan doesn’t work out for you, we want to make the necessary changes to ensure it works in the future.

Obstacles that can get in the way of achieving the perfect plant layout

Coming up with the perfect plant layout takes careful planning, analysis, and teamwork. As such, there are several things that can get in the way of achieving the perfect layout, including:

• Gaining customer trust – If a customer doesn’t trust us, it’s tough to convince them that our design plans will help them succeed. Therefore, we do everything in our power to gain their trust and believe in our process.
• Contractors and subcontractors – It’s common for contractors and subcontractors to want to do things their way. As such, it’s up to us to work with them in a cohesive and collaborative manner.
• Engineers and architects – This is also true with architects, as they often have their own vision for what a plant design should look like.
• Issues with the building – Even though we can do wonders with nearly every building, there are instances when we’re hampered because of size or layout restrictions.

Advantages of turning to PWI for your plant layout needs

There are several things that sets PWI apart from the competition, including:

We aren’t “pushy” salesmen

One of the first things you’ll notice when working with PWI is that we aren’t pushy or trying to sell you something you don’t need. Our salespersons don’t get paid on a commission basis, which means their paycheck will be the same whether they sell you something or not.

Instead, our only goal is to make sure you have the best tools, equipment, and system for your needs. If that means recommending a less expensive product or something from a competitor, then that’s exactly what we’ll do. We’re more concerned with finding the right solution for your needs than with making a sale.

Experience and collaboration

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a crane and mezzanine specialist with more experience than the men and women at PWI. We’ve been in the industry for decades, and understand the ins and outs of what makes a production plant as productive as possible.

We’re also committed to collaborating with one another on projects. We understand that different individuals have different strengths and weaknesses. As such, the best way to find the right solution for your needs is to combine as many strengths as possible.

Best of all, we’ll do this for free! We’ll lay out our plans for your manufacturing plant for free and won’t charge you until you sign the purchase order.

Hands on

At PWI, we’ve found that the best way to design the perfect manufacturing plant layout is to be as hands-on as possible.

As such, we’ll invite you into our office, sit down with you, and walk you through our vision for your facility. Then, if you like what you see, you can pay for our services and we’ll move forward with our plans.

Final thoughts

Designing a plant and laying out your production plan with PWI is a smooth and easy process. We take away the stress and burden of worrying whether or not you’re wasting your money on a bad plant design.

We love assisting people with their plant layout design in the hopes of maximizing the safety, efficiency, and productivity of your system.

Contact us if you want to schedule a free consultation, complete with initial drawings and a free estimate. Bring any current plans or visions you have with you, and we’ll work together to make them a reality.

Although we don’t have all the answers, we’re industry experts when it comes to plant design and layout! Get a free quote today.